


Recompense

by kitashvi



Series: Atonement [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M, Malik is hikari, Marik is yami, Mental Breakdown, Swearing, Throwing Things, Yami Marik is the calm one, believe it or not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitashvi/pseuds/kitashvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Bakura didn’t do things like that. He liked to loosen the screws on playground equipment and steal from charity shops, and then the day before we were all supposed to go to the museum to see the tablet, he pulls a little girl out of the way of a truck?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recompense

**Author's Note:**

> _This started out decently, and then went so far into left field, I don't even know what happened._
> 
> **The tone completely U-turned, and it wasn't supposed to drag out this long. Perhaps we'll come back to this and try to capture the feeling we were originally setting out for.**

“Ryou, you need to eat.”  
  
“Fuck off.”  
  
Atem steps back and looks at Malik, who shrugs as if to say ‘I told you so.’ Across the room, Marik leans against the door he’d just ushered the Friendship Cult through and braces for the worst.  
  
Atem clears his throat to try again. “It’s been days, Ryou, and we’re concerned about—”  
  
“I don’t care.” Ryou doesn’t look up from where he sits on the couch, cradling the Ring in his lap. A horrible dent mars the center, twisting a spike and bending the frame’s metal back onto itself. “Get out of my house.”  
  
Tristan steps around the others to the edge of the couch. “Ryou, buddy, look—”  
  
“He was still trying, you know?” Ryou glances, up eyes fixed only on the pharaoh. “Despite that crock of shit about giving you the Eye and handing over the Ring, he was still trying to kill you.” He sucks in a deep, rattling breath and metal crunches as Marik’s grip tightens on the doorknob. “He—He asked me to built this giant display of Ancient Egypt, and I don’t know how, but he was going to use it to make you pay.” Ryou licks his chapped lips, tasting blood. “He said he might not come back from it, and I was okay with that. I was. He was going to make you pay and he might not make it back, but then he got _hit_ by a _truck_ , saving a child who ran into the street.”  
  
“Pay?” Yugi’s forehead wrinkles with his frown, and gods, he looks like such a child. “Pay for what? Yami didn’t do anything to him.” He turns to Atem. “Did you?”  
  
Ryou turns to look at Yugi and realizes that they don’t _know_. Bakura told him the whole truth and he knows what happened at Kul Elna and he knows the pharaoh’s name and they _don’t_ , and for a sick second, it fills him with glee. Atem looks so confused and such a fierce joy bursts through Ryou that it makes his teeth ache.  
  
He’s quiet for a long, long while, staring down at the Ring in his hands, running his thumb over the spots of blood that won’t come off no matter how hard he scrubs. He can feel the burn of Ishtar eyes on him and can almost hear them talking to each other in their heads, but he speaks up again before the two decide to start clearing the Friendship Cult out. Joey shifts from foot to foot like he wants to say something, but Ryou talks right over him. “Bakura didn’t do things like that. He liked to loosen the screws on playground equipment and steal from charity shops, and then the day before we were all supposed to go to the museum to see the tablet, he pulls a little girl out of the way of a truck?” Ryou’s grip on the Ring is so tight, his knuckles are bloodless. “Bakura didn’t _do_ things like that. He wasn’t _nice_. _I’m_ the nice one.”  
  
Tea looks like she wants to hug him, but she settles for moving closer. Her hand settles on Atem’s shoulder instead, comforting someone else. “Ryou, this isn’t your fault.”  
  
“I know. I know that! How could I not know that?” His head is throbbing, and when he fixes his gaze on Atem again, the pharaoh looks scared. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours.” Ryou’s hands still grip the Ring and he twists, hard. The metal buckles like tinfoil, turning the wadjet eye into warped scrap and snapping off a piece in his hand. “Now it won’t fit in the tablet. Now you’re stuck here, just like the rest of us!” He hurls it at Atem so hard it tears the fabric of the pharaoh’s jacket as it whizzes by—Marik catches it in his free hand before it embeds itself into the front door. “Get _out!_ ” Ryou’s voice cracks and in the back of his head, he thinks he hears Bakura snarl and call him weak. “Get out of my house, get out of my life, and don’t you _ever come back!_ ” His chest is heaving and everything hurts and Ryou hopes to God this is him dying.  
  
Ryou’s voice is still echoing across the living room when Malik says, low and patient, “I think you should go. I’ll walk you guys to your car.” They file out the door, silent, until only Ryou and Marik are left.  
  
Marik stays where he is, piece of the Ring still in his hand, and Ryou stares at him for a long moment. “I’m going to sleep.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
He can hear the boy in bed by the time Malik comes back in. He grabs his hikari’s arm as he walks by. “Bakura walked into traffic, didn’t he?”  
  
Malik jerks back, but Marik tightens his grip. Malik glances at the stairs and lowers his voice to hiss, “I don’t know. I don’t! He said he was tired. Just tired. I though he meant of shopping. And I turned around for a _second_ and when I turned back he was throwing the girl back towards me and the truck was on top of him—” He digs his fingers into Marik’s wrist and shakes his head. “I don’t know.”  
  
Marik lets him go and they both lean against the kitchen counter. He’s gripping the piece of the Ring so hard it hurts, so he lets it clatter onto the countertop. Malik watches it skitter to a stop. “Is he really dead? Do you know? Can we get him back?”  
  
“I don’t know."  
  
Upstairs, Ryou is crying. Downstairs, they pretend not to hear it.  
  
-  
  
When they come downstairs the next morning, they see Ryou sitting at the table, halfway through breakfast. He shrugs away their concerned expressions. “What? I was hungry.”  
  
Marik and Malik exchange looks and Marik shrugs, moving to sit opposite Ryou. The ruined Ring rests by his elbow and Ryou points to it with his fork. “There’s some welding equipment in the basement, left over from one of my father’s museum projects. Do you think you could fix it?”  
  
“I could try.” He picks a chunk of melon off Ryou’s plate and takes the pieces of the Ring, holding them up so the edges line up. Ryou nods and goes back to his eggs.  
  
Malik crosses his arms over his chest and scowls, watching him for a long time. “What are you planning?”  
  
“I’m going to phone Yugi and apologize,” Ryou tells them as he gets up to pour tea, “profusely. Blame it on the grief, and tell him the Ring is fixed. I’ll ask if I can still go with them to the museum. And I’ll finish what Bakura started. He told me how he was going to do it.”  
  
“That’s stupid!” Malik doesn’t laugh so much as he’s startled into it. Marik watches them both, expression placid as his hands smooth over bumps in the Ring. “That’s—” He shakes his head, furious. “Are you _stupid_? Did Bakura tell you what would _happen_ when you lost? Where you’d go?” He stands, the chair skittering back against the tile.  
  
Ryou hands him his tea and leans against the counter. “That’s where he is, isn’t it? The underworld?” Malik splutters and Ryou smiles. “Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking of doing the same thing.”  
  
“Ryou, it’s not the _same_ —”  
  
“I’m as good a duelist as he is—”  
  
“That’s not going to matter when you have a demon breathing down your neck and no way to back out of it!” Ryou brushes past him back into the kitchen and Malik grabs his shoulder and yanks him back around. “I know you’re hurting, Ryou, but you’re not thinking and you’re going to end up—”  
  
“He took care of me, alright!” Ryou snaps, pulling his arm free and shoving Malik away from him. “It was bad at first, yeah, but he took care of me.” The rage blows out of him and he curls in on himself. “And then he goes and dies doing something decent and I can’t even hate him for it. I owe him this.”  
  
Malik lets his hand drop to his side and grits his teeth and Ryou sags back against the counter. In the quiet, Marik sighs, pressing his palms to the table and spreading his fingers wide. “I’ll go start on the Ring.”  
  
Malik’s jaw drops. “You’re agreeing with him? You want him to die, too?”  
  
The Egyptian rests his hand on Ryou’s shoulder for a moment before he collects the Ring and heads for the basement. He turns back to Malik before he reaches the stairs and grins. “Ryou survived Bakura, Malik. What the fuck could you do to stop him?”  
  
-  
  
Ryou’s just finished setting up the display when slim brown fingers drop something over his shoulder onto the sand. It’s a smudged, distorted little figure, with purple beads for eyes and jewelry painted on in gold Sharpie. Ryou turns to look at Malik, eyebrow arched.  
  
Malik crosses his arms and glances away. “Shut up. I know it’s ugly.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
The Egyptian skirts the corpse in the sarcophagus and a red, embarrassed flush creeps up his neck. “I didn’t do it for you. I had some debts to settle with Bakura, too.” He leans close to Ryou for a moment and Ryou smiles. “He’s not the only good guy around here.” Pulling his backpack up onto the edge of the table, he hands Ryou the Ring, good-as-new. “Show time?”  
  
Ryou slips it over his head, and it’s almost like coming home. “Show time.”


End file.
